Sustainability and curriculum design: exploring issues of ecology in law and social work education
Conference Contribution ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
James Cook University has positioned itself as the "University for the Tropics", an identity that necessitates a deep concern with issues of sustainability. As part of university wide efforts to refresh the existing curriculum to better reflect such concerns, the authors were appointed as curriculum scholars and tasked with building capacity for curriculum design amongst academics in a range of disciplines. The disciplines of law and social work, with their traditional focus on social rather than environmental concerns, present particular challenges when moving towards the development of sustainability-oriented educational practices. Previous attempts at introducing sustainability perspectives into discipline-based higher education have often resulted in piecemeal or "add-on" curricular solutions. Yet the very nature of sustainability as a concept suggests that a more holistic and integrated approach is required. This paper discusses the use of ecology as a conceptual framework, or thematic lens, that can serve as a foundation for the re-imagining of discipline-based curriculum. Drawing on insights from curriculum development, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and education for sustainability, the authors develop a framework for an approach to law and social work education that is grounded in ecological understandings, and reflects a sustainability orientation while remaining true to the fundamental concerns of each discipline.
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Sustainability 2012: Eighth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability
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Vancouver, Canada
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Common Ground
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